HELLO AND WELCOME! Before you can post your question, you'll have to register -- it's completely free and registered users see less advertising! If you just want to browse through the existing questions, just select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. Otherwise, click here to register!. We highly recommend that you print a copy of our Guide for New Members. Enjoy!

hibernate problem and overheating

hey guys i have a couple of problems with my fairly new laptop (Acer 5051) and needed some advice, afta some googling i found this place!

i have had my laptop a few months now and brough it with xp but with free upgrade to vista. now i have vista installed but i have a couple of problems one is that half the time when i put my laptop on hibernate (from startup menu) it doesnt go in to hibernate but instead the screen turns off but i can still hear the laptop running, the screen doesnt turn on whatever i do so i have to either leave it (and let it's battery finish) or turn it off and on again where it then says my system wasnt shut down correctly!

secondaly, another problem is that i think the laptop might be over heating as the fan is on a lot of the time and sometimes turns on and off in a short space of time. after a while a while it blows out very hot air. is it normal to blow out such hot air and for the fan to be constantly turning on and of?

i still have waranty but i thought i'd get real professional help before i think about calling up customer support

Couple of things to check. First make sure you install all the updates. Vista is still full of bugs. Then keep in mind that vista uses much more RAM then XP. Something like 600+ meg minimum. So check the size of your swap file and your hiberfile. Increase swap file to be at least the size of RAM. And you may want to disable hibernation, then reboot, then re enable it, because I assume you did an upgrade and I am not sure if it's set up correctly. Not sure if this will help, but this is what I would do first.

Don't worry about the fan. It's not overheating, it just kicks in when it starts to get slightly hot. Since Vista is resource heavy, you are using a lot more RAM and CPU cycles to run the desktop alone, therefor causing your system to run a lot heavier than it did when you had XP.

If you start having issues where the system powers itself off at random times, then you should worry about heat issues. If it ever comes down to that, buy a can of compressed air, and blow out the vents that control the airflow of the CPU fan. As a precaution, you can always get a USB laptop fan tray to cool the system more, and make sure that nothing is obstructing the airflow (for instance, having it no your lap where you cover the fan on the underside of the laptop casing).